The Vagrants

Less than convinced, Bashi went to the kitchen and fetched a whole bag of crackers. At each corner of the bed, he put a stack of crackers. He rummaged in the closet and found a pair of old silk shoes that had belonged to his grandmother, who had had bound feet, so the shoes were no bigger than a child's palm. More intrigued by the shoes than the snack, Little Sixth grabbed them and chewed on the embroidered flowers.

Nini looked on as Bashi busied himself making Little Sixth comfortable. What a strangely good man he was sometimes, she thought, wasting his time on a baby. She went out to the living room and sank into a huge cushioned chair. Bashi's solicitousness made her feel important; she could easily be the mistress of this household, making him her servant.

After a few minutes, Bashi came out and said, “I've got a present for you.”

Nini turned to study him. When he was not behaving oddly, he looked almost handsome.

“Do you want to guess?”

“How would I know? Who knows which screw has come loose in your brain?” she said.

He laughed. “You're right,” he said. “It'd take you a million years to guess.” He went out to the storage room and, a moment later, came back with a cardboard box. The box was not a big one, but the way Bashi carried it, carefully balanced between his two hands, made Nini think of something expensive or heavy, or both. She wondered if it was a present she could hide from her parents and sisters.

Bashi put the box on the table and opened it; then he stepped aside, gave her a great bow, and invited her to step forward, as if he were a master magician. She squatted by the box and looked inside. She found neither expensive food nor jewelry; instead, the box was filled with ripped newspaper, and in the middle was a little gray ball with quills. She moved it with a finger and it rolled to one side, revealing nothing but more newspaper under its small body.

“So,” Bashi said. “What do you think?”

“What is it?”

“A hedgehog.”

Bashi watched Nini's face closely, which made her impatient. “What kind of present is that? You think I'm a skunk that needs a hedgehog for lunch?” she said.

Bashi guffawed as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world, and despite her wish to remain stern and angry, Nini laughed too. She lifted the hedgehog by its quills and put it on the table. It remained motionless, hiding its small face and soft stomach away from the world. “It's dead,” Nini said.

“Silly girl,” Bashi said. “It looks dead because I put it out in the storage cabin last night.” He picked up a dustpan and scooped the hedgehog into it. “Let me show you the trick,” he said, and carried the hedgehog to the kitchen. The fire in the stove was roaring and the kitchen was hotter than the rest of the house. Bashi took off his sweater and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Now look,” he said, and placed the dustpan on the floor, close to the stove. After a while, the hedgehog started to move, slowly at first, and then it grew longer and flatter, its face showing up underneath its uncurled body. Nini looked at its pale pink nose and small beady eyes—the hedgehog looked confused, its nose twitching helplessly.

“Is he hungry?” Nini asked.

“Wait and see,” Bashi said. He put a shallow plate of water on the floor nearby, and soon the hedgehog crawled toward the water. To Nini's amazement, when it found the water, it gulped it all down without taking a breath.

“How did you know he was thirsty?” Nini asked.

“Because I tried this trick before you came,” Bashi said. “You freeze a hedgehog and then unfreeze him and he thinks he's just out of his hibernation and he's thirsty.”

“Stupid animal,” Nini said.

Bashi smiled and said he had another trick to show her. He took a jar of salt out of the cupboard and asked for her hand, and Nini stuck out her good hand in a fist. He grabbed her fingers and uncurled them, and she felt a small tickling sensation coming not from her hand but from somewhere in her body that she had not known existed before. He poured a tiny mound of salt onto her palm. “Hold still,” he said, and bent down to lick from her palm. She withdrew her hand before his tongue could touch it and the salt spilled all over the counter. “What are you doing?” she said.

Bashi sighed. “I'm teaching you how to do the trick,” he said. “You need to hold still or else the hedgehog will be scared.”